Public Spend Forum’s Public Procurement Weekly Roundp

GAO shuts down Oracle’s JEDI protest, DHS plans to make a decision on EAGLE II by the end of the year, and Northrop owes $30 million for fraudulent costs. All this and more in Public Spend Forum’s Weekly Roundup for November 16, 2018.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) denied a bid protest from Oracle America Inc., which argued that the massive, controversial Pentagon cloud contract was improper and “unduly [restricts] competition” in its winner take-all-structure. However, the GAO denied all three of Oracle’s areas of protest, asserting that the Department of Defense’s ongoing Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure cloud contract acquisition process is consistent with procurement regulations. “The agency reasonably determined that a single-award approach is in the government’s best interests for various reasons, including national security concerns, as the statute allows,” Ralph White, the GAO’s managing associate general counsel for procurement law, wrote.

According to Chief Procurement Officer Soraya Correa, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) plans to make a business decision by the end of 2018 about how the department will procure a large share of its information technology (IT) services after the Enterprise Acquisition Gateway for Leading-Edge Solutions II (EAGLE II) contract vehicle ends in 2020. DHS established the EAGLE II in 2013 as a multiple‑award indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity contract vehicle designed as the preferred source of IT services for the department’s IT infrastructure and initiatives. “DHS prides itself on providing frequent, accurate, and timely information to industry. As I have previously indicated publicly, the Office of the Chief Procurement Officer is working closely with the Office of the Chief Information Officer to analyze information that will lead to a final decision about how DHS will fulfill its needs when EAGLE II ends,” Correa said.

Zoom Video Communications, Inc. announced its video communications platform is now available on the General Services Administration (GSA) Schedule 70 contract. Zoom, through its relationship with Ingram Micro Inc., is now engaged with Ingram Micro’s subsidiary Promark Technology, Inc., which specializes in distributing IT products and services to the federal government.

Northrop Grumman will have to pay the U.S. government $30 million as a settlement for falsely billing hours to the Air Force between 2010 and 2013, the Department of Justice announced. But in an internal memo to employees obtained by Defense News, Northrop Chairman and CEO Wes Bush expressed his belief that the company followed its own internal procedures and appropriately handled the issue. The issue stemmed from two Northrop contracts, which per the Justice Department, between 2010 and 2013, Northrop employees stationed in the Middle East billed hours they did not work to the government. In a statement, Northrop Grumman spokesman Tim Paynter said the company identified the issue and reported it to the government in 2013.